


Love Thy Neighbour

by bloodgutsandstarbucks



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Awkwardness, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 08:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21250568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodgutsandstarbucks/pseuds/bloodgutsandstarbucks
Summary: Tony's new neighbour is kinda weird.





	Love Thy Neighbour

Tonys new neighbour is kinda weird.

Like, he’s not trying to be callous or anything. But he’s just, y’know. Strange.

They first met four months ago. 

The apartment opposite Tony’s had been vacant for only two weeks ever since old Mrs. Perry moved to Florida to retire with her grandkids. That was until one rainy Tuesday, when Tony sighted his new neighbour trudging down the hallway, hauling box after box through the elevator, whistling to himself as he relocated all of his belongings to 7C. 

Tony, on his way out, had first seen the guy trying to precariously balance a large box in his arms whilst trying to unlock his apartment door at the same time. Predictably, he’d dropped his keys and Tony had swooped in and picked them up for him.

“Oh my gosh, thank you,” the guy had said earnestly, shaking Tony’s hand after opening his door. “Yikes, I’m such a mess. Mercury in retrograde, am I right?”

Tony had nodded, having no idea what he was talking about, and promptly left.

So, the new guy - Peter, he had later learned was his name - was cute. Fluffy curls, gorgeous skin, irresistible big brown eyes. 

But he was, y’know, a little bizarre.

Tony’s not even exaggerating. 

Every time he goes into the hallway he’s met with a sneeze-inducing wave of patchouli and incense, holding his breath as he passes, wondering if he is living next door to a Shinto shrine. Tony swears at night that he hears humming. Like, of the _om mani padme hum_ kind of variety. He hears the distant clang of singing bowls and tuning forks at midnight when he’s turning in to go to bed. 

He thought about politely telling Peter to keep it down but every time he knocked on the door of 7C Peter just beamed at him in welcome and asked him about his day with genuine interest.

Tony bought ear plugs instead.

Tony swears that Peter can’t be any older than he is, early twenties at the youngest, but he says words like _radical, dude_ and _oopsy-daisy,_ _groovy_. One time he stubbed his toe around Tony and said _fiddlesticks_. He seems to be in and out at the weirdest times, waving burning sage at the letterboxes at three AM as if it were the normal thing to do.

“What do you even _do_,” Tony had asked one morning in the elevator. Peter was carrying a crate full of succulents, biceps bulging with the strain.

Peter looks down at his crate of plants and then back up to Tony as if it were obvious. The _duh_ goes unsaid but Tony hears it.

“I’m a yoga teacher and a reiki practitioner,” he says, handing Tony a succulent from the crate. 

Tony blinks down at the small potted plant. 

“Um,” he says. 

“It’s an echeveria elegans,” Peter explains, smiling.

“Do you… want me to hold this for you?”

“No, silly,” Peter had laughed. “It’s yours. Keep it in the sunlight and try not to over-do it with the water.” 

Tony leaves the elevator more confused than before, clutching the succulent all the way to his 9:00AM class.

——-

Tony can handle weirdness. Tony can handle eccentricity. He can even handle the new plant he absolutely does not have time to care for and absolutely did not call Brenda. But what Tony _can’t_ handle is the ear-piercingly loud _Gregorian chanting_ that comes from next door one night whilst he’s studying. Up for two days already, his concentration is shot by the guttural singing, the lead of his pencil snapping against his notebook in frustration. It’s nearly midnight for fucks sake.

Tony had stormed over, enraged and determined, and rapped his knuckles on the door for a good two minutes before it had swung open, a smiling Peter giving him a warm welcome on the other side.

“Do you _mind_?” Tony had demanded. “I’m trying to study for my thesis.”

Peter looked taken aback, contriteness making his big brown eyes dewy and soft. 

“Oh my gosh,” he’d said, extending a hand out, “I’m so sorry about that. Hang on, wait here. Please wait.”

So Tony had waited, expecting Peter to rush to lower the volume. Instead, he’d returned with a fist-sized, green and purple rock-crystal thing, presenting it to Tony with a grin. 

Peter had placed it in Tony’s palm, using both hands to curl Tony’s fingers over the heavy, polished stone.

“There,” Peter says proudly. “It’s fluorite.”

“It’s what,” Tony blinks.

“For clarity and concentration,” Peter explains, beaming a mile wide. “Keep it, okay? Good luck on your thesis.”

He’d closed the door, leaving Tony with a rock in his hand and the chanting continued.

Tony bought noise-cancelling headphones to put over his ear-plugs.

He definitely didn’t place the fluorite on his windowsill by his bed or smile at it sometimes or run his fingers over its smooth edges.

Ever since it’s been a never ending stream of peculiar behaviour, weird conversations about moon phases, etheric bodies and third eyes while waiting for their laundry to dry in the basement, the effect of the upcoming perigee syzygy on the neighbourhood and guessing Tony’s star sign.

“Cancer, right?”

“What?”

“Your zodiac sign,” Peter answers, rubbing at his eyebrow, pushing the hairs askew. His nails are painted black. 

“Gemini,” Tony answers warily, piling his underwear and bedsheets into his basket.

“Damn, I was close,” Peter smiles, pouring his own mixture of organic fabric softener into the washer. “I’ll figure you out yet.”

Tony wants to reach over and smooth down the raised hairs on his eyebrow. 

He’s a perfectionist, that’s all.

But in any case Tony just continues to go about his life, continues to study, grade his papers. He visits his optometrist and gets a new prescription and wonders how he is going to pay his phone bill when he spends more on heating over the winter than he intended.

It’s all fine, whale music and white sage aside.

Not that he’d ever admit it, but it’s kinda nice.

—–

One day Tony rouses from his slumber to hear loud voices outside, the bellow of protesters on the main arterial street below. Tony thinks nothing of it and pops in his ear plugs, keen to get another hour of sleep before he has to be at his class. Being a TA is the worst.

Later, Tony watches the local news, watching in horrified fascination as his neighbour is one of the many arrested for protesting at a rally of a visiting Republican senator. 

“What’s with the pyjamas?” Tony had queried at the letterboxes the following day, roaming his eyes over the soft-looking _Hello Kitty_ pants that Peter had been arrested and released in - and was still wearing. 

The pictures of his arrest had been on twitter for gods sake. He was trending as _#hellokittyguy. _It was all his students were talking about.

“Oh, I’d slept in,” was all Peter said. 

“You slept in. To a protest.” 

“Irresponsible, I know. I’m already beating myself up, don’t worry.”

At this stage, Tony can’t even find himself to be bothered by it. He’s so used to the sound of the koto, the wind flute and kalimba from next door that it’s damn near unsettling to go without it. Tony’s used to the weird attire, from the ponchos and the sandals and the fisherman pants in mid-winter, the beaded bracelets and rose quartz pendants. He’s even used to finding Peter knocking on his door, asking for salt or milk or handing him personalised organza bags filled with small crystals and incense cones and charms.

And if he looks forward to their talks at the door? It’s only Tony’s business.

One night Peter sets off the fire alarm from burning rope incense. He says he got it when he went to Nepal, apologising profusely to the grouchy occupants who send him withering stares.

Tony doesn’t even ask, too busy staring at Peters lithe, muscled frame that had been hiding under the baggy clothes. The man is clad only in his underwear, didn’t think to grab anything when he’d fled to the emergency meeting point. 

It’s three in the morning. Tony’s not even mad.

“Did you know your aura is gold and red,” Peter had asked that night, wandering over to him and accepting an offered a cigarette.

“No,” Tony yawned, taking a drag and wishing he was back in his own bed, fire truck lights flashing, dizzying and disorienting.

“S’nice. Pretty.”

Peter wraps his arms around himself and shivers, the cool night air sending goosebumps over his pale skin.

Tony quickly shrugs his own jacket off his shoulders and offers it to Peter so he doesn’t have to stare at the obscene way his nipples harden.

“Thanks, Tony. You’re a sweetheart.”

“I’m not - it’s not a big deal,” Tony grumbles. “You looked like you needed it, so.”

Peter smothers his smile in the collar of Tony’s jacket. Tony still sees it. 

His stomach squirms like the first time he held someones hand.

“Do you want to have dinner sometime?” Peter asks, as they pile back upstairs an hour later after the building has been cleared.

“Yeah, okay,” Tony agrees, eyeing the dimples of Peters lower back and the crevice of his muscles where his spine rests. He’s got an ass that’s so perfect it deserves to be worshipped but Tony isn’t looking at it. He’s not.

“Tomorrow work for you?”

Tony nods, watching Peter disappear back into his apartment with an awkward wave and a smile. He’s still wearing Tony’s jacket. 

If Tony goes back inside his apartment and jerks off to the image of Peter wearing just his jacket and nothing else, well then, no one else needs to know.

—-

The following evening Tony knocks on Peters door, dressed in jeans and a nice shirt. He adjusts his glasses where they perch on his nose as he waits, sliding them up as Peter opens the door, beckoning him inside. 

The interior looks very different to Tony’s apartment, is the first thing he notices. 

Plants hang from the ceiling, there is a large afghan rug in the living room, all the furniture is mismatched, a sofa and an armchair with different patterns and colours, all the bookshelves are of different wood and sizes. 

There are cushions everywhere, crystals and rocks on almost every surface, incense burning by the open window, stacks and stacks of books on the divine and lunar charts on the walls. Michelle Branch is playing unironically from the speakers on Peters bookshelves.

“I didn’t know what to bring, so,” Tony mumbles, tearing his eyes away from a copy of the Karma Sutra and holding up store bought cake and a bottle of red wine.

“Oh, that’s perfect,” Peter gushes, kissing Tony’s cheek and taking the items from him and herding him onto the sofa. “Sit, sit. I’ll be right back.”

Tony sits, a little dazed. The spot on his cheek where Peters lips touched his skin burns. 

There’s an old TV in the corner and a CD player straight out of the nineties nestled in the corner between book stacks. There’s two magazines on the coffee table: National Geographic and Cosmopolitan. In the epicentre of it all Tony's nostrils itch to sneeze.

God, Peter isso, so_.._. 

_Charming_, is the word that comes unbidden to Tony’s mind when Peter bounds back into the living room, two glasses of wine clutched in his hands, the charms on his beaded bracelets clinking together. He’s barefoot, Tony notices. His toenails are painted black, too.

“So, I have a confession to make,” Peter begins, passing Tony a glass and sitting beside him on the sofa.

“Oh, god,” Tony winces. “You’re not an anti-vaxxer, are you?” 

He didn’t even _think_ about that. 

“What,” Peter blinks. “No.”

“Okay, good. Sorry. Continue.”

“I’m, uh, kinda broke. I know I invited you to dinner but all I have is cup ramen and Corona.”

“Oh,” Tony says, watching at how Peter smiles sheepishly, “That’s okay. I like cup ramen. I mean, I’m a student, so.”

“Is that okay?” Peter asks, cringing as he casts a look over to his tiny kitchenette. “Sorry, I was so shocked that you even agreed to come that I couldn’t even think.”

“Mercury in retrograde?” Tony guesses.

“No,” Peter laughs, looking at his hands bashfully. “You’re just really cool and handsome and sophisticated and I don’t know. It wasn’t in my tarot, so.”

_It wasn’t in his tarot_, Tony repeats in his mind, wondering when exactly he hit his head and found all of this attractive. He’s a man of science, alright?

“You been crushin’ on me, huh?” Tony asks, shifting closer until their thighs and shoulders touch.

“Yeah. You make me kinda nervous.”

“Well your tarot can’t tell you that I think you’re beautiful,” Tony reasons, sipping his wine. “Or delightful. Or that I think the way you swing your legs when you’re waiting for your drying is adorable.”

The flush that comes over Peters cheeks makes Tony’s heart beat faster.

“You really think that?”

“Against my better judgement,” Tony admits. 

“What was it that did you in?” Peter asks, leaning in, drawing his knees up and looking like a pleased cat. “Was it the green fluorite? The rutilated quartz?”

Tony leans in to bridge the gap, pressing his lips against Peter’s in a sweet kiss. He tastes like coffee and wine and everything smells like lemongrass and palo santo.

“Just your cute, quirky self,” Tony says against his lips. “And maybe the blue calcite.”

Peter laughs against his mouth. “I knew it.”

—

Later, when Tony is curled up against Peter’s bare chest, still catching his breath, Peter asks him on a second date.

“There’s a climate change rally at the State Library this weekend, if you’re interested. We could have matching signs and drink Corona after.”

“Baby,” Tony yawns, eyes heavy, “you do that thing with your tongue again and I’ll go anywhere with you.”

“_Sweet_,” Peter says, pressing a kiss into Tony’s hair.

_Yeah_, Tony thinks as he drifts off, _it is_.

**Author's Note:**

> [I tumble](https://darker-soft-starker.tumblr.com/)


End file.
